Internet Malls
Internet
Malls were conceived by the naive folks who thought that an Internet
Mall works the same way as a Regional Shopping Center Mall. If
you are on your way to Macy's and have to park in the parking
lot and walk through the Mall to get there... you pass a lot
of stores called satellites. These stores do quite well since
the foot traffic that is generated by the 'anchor tenants' helps
to provide a constant stream of customers to the satellite stores.
Because
of the general activity caused by the 'anchor tenants' , a lot
of people go to the Mall because there are a lot of other people
there and it might be a good place to meet. Others go because
they think that if one store doesn't have what they want... another
store will have it. Whatever the reason, there is a synergistic
effect and it creates a lot of foot traffic.
Internet
Malls are entirely different. The customer goes to a Webpage
where there is a list of merchandise categories and/or a list
of stores. From this list, she selects where she wants to go,
or rather, what webpages she wants to look at. She then goes
to the page or pages she selected. Does the customer see any
merchandise from the other stores? No, they don't. Not unless
you subscribe to an ad on the Mall's webpage. Of course, you
have already paid for the 'setup' fee to the Mall folks of about
$1,500 plus around $50 to $100 a month for them to host your
website.
So
let's say you spend $1,500 to get a place in the mall and $50
a month. How are you planning to drive customers to your site?
You need to put in more effort , namely time and money, and you
have yet to guarantee that you will make money.
Very
few of the companies pushing these sorts of Malls are really
interested in giving you much in return except for an effort
to get the Mall listed on the search engines and directories.
When
was the last time you went to a search engine? Did you see a
Mall listed? Probably not... If you did see a Mall listed...
Did you click on the Mall? No, you clicked on the Subject you
were looking for when you clicked on the Search Engine. They
want to keep tenants just like a bricks and mortar Mall... but
they don't provide what a physical Mall does... which is: Location...
Location... Location...
Once
you understand how the internet works, you realize that what
you are looking for is "Location". If you are on a
server, you are 'on the net' or from a physical standpoint you
are in the town. What you want to do is to move your store to
the busiest intersection in the town.
Since
you cannot rent high traffic space like you can in a town or
city, you must devise ways to get your address out there to the
public. One enterprising group has decided that if they give
away money it will bring visitors. You may have heard of iWon.com.
I must say, giving away money works, but it can be awfully expensive
for the young entrepreneur.
So,
it does not make a difference whether you are you are hosted
by a Mall... or the cheapest hosting service on the net. You
need to generate traffic to your site to your site.There are
more cost effective ways to generate traffic than to pay big
bucks for Mall hosting...